


Broken Wheels

by Melethril



Series: Men Out of Time [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Tony Stark, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Tony Stark, I Don't Even Know, Lonely Tony Stark, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), The Movie Messed Me Up, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 16:35:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6863593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melethril/pseuds/Melethril
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>„The futurist is here, gentlemen! He sees all. He knows what's best for you, whether you like it or not.“</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Wheels

**Author's Note:**

> I don't believe this is canon. I don't think Tony would do this. However, somebody left a comment for 'Men Out of Time' and I just had to write something because Clint's borderline hatred seemed so misplaced. 
> 
> This was meant to go into another direction entirely.  
> Tony had other ideas, though.

**Broken Wheels**

_„The futurist is here, gentlemen! He sees all. He knows what's best for you, whether you like it or not.“_

 

Tony felt like an old man as he stepped into the room ( _he was_ ).

A futurist could not change the future, they could only read the signs of the present and predict what would happen. It was based on nothing more than probability; the better you were at it, the more factors you could include, which led to more precise numbers. As an engineer and inventor, he could create new things that advanced development, even change the world, but you could not change people.

There was no such thing as _changing the future_ either. The future was not a given thing; it was a number of different scenarios that were more or less likely to happen. The future was only set the once it became the present.

He had run the numbers.

Without signing the Accords, the likelihood of the Accords being instated regardless and without the influence of the Avengers within the following six months had been 80.45%... 95.45% within one, and 99.89% within two years.

The likelihood of being able to fight and negotiate the Accords if they had all signed instantly had been 96.7%; the likelihood of managing such a thing now, after everything happening in Bukarest and Germany, remained thankfully at 68.5% due to the capture of Zemo. However, the probability of these negotiations coming out in their favor was only 28.4% because people did not like Tony Stark and King T’Challa was back in Wakanda. If he used Rhodey’s injury, the odds would rise to 35.6%, but he could not do that to him. Vision was not human and would actually decrease the odds of succeeding down to 22.8%.

The probability of Earth successfully defending itself against extraterrestrial attacks had been unacceptable before the debacle with Ultron (8.3%), worse after (3.2%), but it had risen once the New Avengers had been trained (7.3%) and would have been better with Banner and Thor at their side (9.8%). Now? They were all so scattered, and the trust was gone; two of their heavy hitters were God only knew where, Rhodey could not fly, Falcon had lost his wings, Tony knew Iron Man was useless because nobody trusted him, and unless he could fly another nuke into space, he had never changed any fight in the Avengers’ favor in the first place. Unless the alien threat happened to attack Wakanda, their heavy hitters would not be able to move fast enough. They were down to 2.5% (a direct attack on Wakanda would raise their chances to 7.2%).

Tony was afraid. After New York, the public had looked to them for help, had hailed them as heroes, but – having been under almost constant surveillance since the age of four – Tony had known this could not last. He had made everything worse with the creation of Ultron… another vision of the future.

_„The futurist is here, gentlemen! He sees all. He knows what's best for you, whether you like it or not.“_

He ran the numbers again.

If he continued to work as Iron Man, the probability of causing another tragedy of enormous proportions was 80% given retrospective data and excluding his first appearance. If he quit however, the negative impact on his former team’s success rate would less than 0.06% given current data. Therefore, he would no longer fly as Iron Man. However, he could not just stand and do nothing while being fully aware that the world would face global destruction by alien forces within the next two (86.5%) to five years (97.5%).

Ultimately, Steve and Tony were as similar as they were different.

Steve would lie down on the wire and let you crawl over him. He would walk through hell with you.

Tony? He would cut the wire, use it to restrain you, then walk right into hell and sleep with the devil to make sure you did not have to. If that did not work, well, he was not just a futurist.

“Ladies… Gentlemen.” He said coolly as he entered.

“Mr. Stark, this is an interesting proposal,” said Ross, and Tony’s lips curled into a cold, cold smile. He could do this.

“Don’t be a fool. It doesn’t suit you,” he stated mockingly.

“You know what this implies, do you, Stark?”

“I don’t make it a habit to repeat myself, Ross.”

“You want us to forget about everything that happened and just…”

“Shut up.” Stunned, Ross obeyed. “You read the proposal, you know what I want.”

“Why would we do that?” Ross smiled confidently. The fool truly believed he had the upper hand in this little power play. When would people learn that nobody could beat Tony Stark at chess?

Tony smiled, removed a tiny remote control from his pocket and pressed it. All the lights in the room went out.

“Do you have any idea how much Stark tech is in every building on Earth? And the things that are not I can easily hack into…if I haven’t already. Your bank accounts? My, my, some of you weren’t very honest as far as financial disclosure is concerned, were you? It would be a shame if the public knew about this.” His tone switched from light to dark within a second. “You remove the shackles you have put on the Avengers. You will pardon them all or every dark little secret you ever tried to hide will be known; and if that isn’t enough to end your careers… Well, I have my ways. Thing is, the Black Widow was not wrong when she said that you needed the Avengers, but they can’t do their job if you restrain them.”

“You supported the Accords!” Ross shouted as he rose from his seat. “You know the Avengers are dangerous.”

“Ross, Ross, Ross,” said Tony chuckling darkly. “That was never meant to shackle _them_. That was to keep myself from crushing you like a bug. To quote the words my namesake: _Winter is coming_. You will need a functional Avengers team by then or the world will come to an end. You have eight hours to prepare a press conference accepting my proposal. If not, I will send you back to the Stone Age.” He turned around, but stopped before he opened the door, “By the way, Ross, our names may be the same, but when I play the game of thrones, I win.”

He left the building.

The world needed the Avengers to survive, and Iron Man was no help. Tony Stark – genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist – could not help either.

He returned to his floor at the Avengers compound, entered the bathroom, moved to the toilet and threw up. His hands were shaking once he was done. He washed up, got himself a new suit (all in black) and grabbed a pair of sunglasses he had not worn in almost a decade.

If all else failed, he had one last card up his sleeve.

If the devil refused to yield, he would lure him into a trap, kill him and, for the sake of the world and the few people he held dear, he would become the devil knowing they would hate him for it.

He looked at the mirror and hated the face that stared back.

Wanda was young and biased. She believed that he did not know the difference between saving the world and destroying it. That was incorrect.

He simply did not hesitate to do whatever was needed so that humanity’s chances of survival within the next five years exceeded 10% for once.

Even if he had to become the Merchant of Death to achieve that. After all, that was the only thing he had ever been truly good at.

He was not a hero. If anything, he had made the world a more dangerous place than it already was. He had fooled himself by thinking he could protect the world, but maybe, he could help the ones that did; even if he could not trust them ( _Did you know? Yes),_ any of them, ever again, he knew they would always be there to save the world.

 


End file.
